


Highwayman's Farewell

by inlovewithnight



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-13
Updated: 2007-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:07:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Highwayman's Farewell

There's blood on the floor.

It's on his hands, too, and his jacket, but he can't take his eyes off the smeared streaks on the floor, drying an ugly brown against the deck. He caught her, when she fell, pulled her to him and held her close while she shuddered and gasped and--

 _\--and died, frakking admit it, frakking say it._

He only let her go when they made him, the team that came pounding through his door because that's the response that came when a gun was fired on a battlestar. _It's against the regs,_ he thinks, and laughs, alone here in their quarters with the blood he made. _Killing your wife, that's not against the regs, but firing the gun to do it--_

He hears the door open, but doesn't bother to look; the blood deserves his attention, the precious blood that looks human but isn't, that ran down and pooled on the floor when they pulled her from his arms and dropped her like garbage, that streaked and smeared when they hauled her up again and dumped her on a stretcher to take her to the morgue.

"Helo."

He shakes his head, not turning, not looking. Maggie's voice. Well, who else were they going to send? The Admiral had already given his lecture, his dressing-down and disappointed stare, and that was the extent to which Bill Adama gave a damn. Nobody else would even bother with that much.

"Helo, sit down."

"Don't you think it's weird?" His voice is hoarse, from screaming and weeping and explaining. Justifying. Trying to make them understand. And before all that, from arguing with her, trying to counter her logic, saying no over and over, for all the good it did in the--

"Do I think what is weird?" Maggie sounds tired, and a little pissed off. He doesn't know if she's mad at him or mad about being sent down here or just cranky because she's been tired for going on three solid years. It doesn't matter anyway. "Will you sit down before you fall over? I'm not going to catch you."

He pictures that, Maggie catching him like he caught Sharon, two bullets in the chest and ears ringing too loud to think. "Isn't it weird that I'm here? Just…standing in my quarters? Walking around free? I'm a killer, right? A murderer." The words taste sour in his mouth, but right. They're true, after all. He pulled the trigger.

"I don't know," she says, a hint of amusement in her voice, and he knows that if he looks at her, she'll have a crooked, death's-head smile. "We've got precedent around here that shooting Sharon isn't a crime."

He's startled enough to laugh, a bark of air that hurts as it leaves his chest. "Oh. Right. I think…it's thirty days, right? Thirty days in the brig for unauthorized discharge."

"We can't spare you," she says, shaking her head and still smiling; he looked away from the blood, at some point, though he's not sure when, and how he's staring at her, at how she fills the empty space of the room as she steps toward him. "Besides, she's not dead, right? She's…she'll be back. She's getting a new body."

"That's the idea." They let him wipe his hands, before he saw the Admiral, but there's blood drying and flaking under his nails and settled deep in the lines on his palms. "But how the hell do I know?"

"If you think of it that way, you'll drive yourself crazy."

"It's like the thing with the rats." She's pulling a chair out to bring to him, but stops and gives him a pointed stare. "You know, that experiment you learn about in physics. Rat in a box, radiation, poison, is it alive or dead and you can't know until you open the box, so it's both. Or neither. I can't remember."

"I don't think your wife would appreciate being compared to a rat."

"I shot my wife." The words are too flat, too final, and the way they hang in the air makes his skin crawl.

"Helo…"

"She's not dead or alive. She's just…I can't know." His breath catches, his heart hitches, he's freezing frakking cold.

"Helo, calm down."

"She's _gone_."

"She's coming back." Maggie reaches out and touches his arm, just lightly, but it sends a jolt of heat through him like a live wire.

He stares down at her hand. "You don't know that."

"You have to have faith."

He feels his mouth curve into a smile, but it must be bitter as hell from the way her jaw clenches in response. "I'm fresh out."

"Damn it, Helo--"

He leans in and kisses her, turning his arm under her hand to grab her elbow, suddenly desperate to feel more warmth, to draw it into himself where he was hollowed out when he pulled the trigger. Her mouth tastes like the stale, recycled-to-death water of Galactica, metallic and cool, until her teeth come down hard on his lip and the hot tang of blood overrides it.

"What the frak is wrong with you?" She breaks his grip and steps back. "You're cracking up and you're out of line, Agathon--"

"I shot her, Maggie." He points at the blood on the floor, half-dried and tacky, streaky and marred with boot prints. "She died right there. How am I supposed to be acting?"

"She'll be back."

"She's dead now." He presses his tongue to his lip, forcing more blood to well up. Hot sour-sweet living blood. "She's gone."

"And you want, what, a pity frak? Is that it? Or did pulling the trigger maybe turn you on?"

He steps back, pushed by the heat in her voice and the shock of her words. "The frak do you--"

"Or you want to pretend I'm her? You want to tell her you're sorry while you frak me?" She steps toward him and he falls back another pace. "Because that won't fly, Helo, I won't let you get away with that bullshit--you frak me, you're going to be frakking _me_ , not--"

Her hands hit his chest and she shoves him back against the wall, facing another painful burst of air from his lungs. Her eyes are bright and unfocused and he remembers late that when Maggie gets mad she gets twice as unpredictable as Starbuck, and just as likely to leave bruises.

She kisses him this time, pressing herself tight against his body to keep him up against the wall, her hands finding his wrists and pinning them to the plating. He could break her grip and push her back, easy, but she's so gods-damned warm, and her teeth are sharp against the wound on his lip, making the pain pulse with his heartbeat. So he can feel it.

"Damn you," she mutters, her voice half a growl, low and thick. "Gods damn you, and her, and--"

He does break her hold now, but just to catch her waist and turn them both, putting her up against the wall and holding her up until she gets her legs tangled with his enough to brace herself. They're both breathing hard between sharp, punishing kisses, every exhale half a sob, half a whispered curse.

She gets both of their trousers undone and shorts down, her hand sliding up under his tanks and then raking her nails down his torso. He shudders and thrusts forward before either of them is ready, making her thump her head back against the wall with a sharp burst of laughter. He echoes it, breathless and out o fhis mind, out of anything but the rush of adrenaline and arousal and overwhelming, raw need, the sound melting into a groan as she reaches down and guides him into her.

Her heels are tight against the small of his back, digging in hard, and he knows he'll have bruises, black and purple fading to ugly green, like the ones he knows he's leaving on her hips in the shape of his fingers, pressing hard to hold her in place as he thrusts deeper, his breath coming in hot bursts half a beat out of synch with hers. Her nails dig into his arms, a warning, and he shifts his weight to hold her up better, find a new angle.

She rests her forehead against his shoulders, curving her body between him and the wall and riding down against him harder. He looks past her at the wall and sees that the dull gray plating is speckled with blood, tiny droplets of spray. His hips jerk as he thrusts one last time, awkwardly, making her hiss in surprise as his hands tighten harder on her hips.

They don't move for a moment, while breathing slows and blood cools, until finally she shifts and bumps his arm with the heel of her hand, nodding down at the floor. He lets her down and steps back, wincing as he sees his handprints standing out against her skin, dyed ugly brown-red where sweat washed the blood off his hands.

"Maggie, I'm--"

"Say you're sorry and I'll shoot you." She fixes her trousers, buckling her belt on the second try. "And that _will_ get me thirty days, at least, so just shut up."

He nods and steps back, giving her room. She tugs the band from her hair, shakes it out, and pulls it back again, and somehow she's shipshape again, regs-neat, everything hidden but the faint wince when she takes a step.

"Better get Doc Cottle to look at your mouth," she says, straightening her collar. "And maybe get some cleaning supplies. You want this place to look nice when your wife comes home."

She leaves, and he stands there for a long moment, staring at the place where the body fell and biting his lip to feel the ache.  



End file.
